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The gaffers, a motley crowd, were sitting or standing about, playing cards or throwing deck quoits to kill time till the play began. The money-changer, his pockets bulging with silver, came up, and Chook turned his sovereigns into half-crowns. Chook looked with curiosity at the crowd; they were all strangers to him. The cards and quoits were dropped as the boxer entered the ring.
So far from blaming him, they all assured him that they would have acted in precisely the same way under similar circumstances. 'For my part, I'm a bloke like this, said a tall man with a very loud voice a chap who nearly fell down dead every time Rushton or Misery looked at him. 'I'm a bloke like this 'ere: I never stands no cheek from no gaffers!
The boxer ran swearing into the ring to hide the kip and the pennies, butting with his bull shoulders against a mob of frenzied gaffers mad with fear and greed, grabbing at any coins they could reach in despair of finding their own. The news spread like fire. The school was surrounded by a hundred policemen in plain clothes and uniform; every outlet from the alley was watched and guarded.
A wall of sandstone of many colors, glowing redder and yellower as the sun goes down; well cushioned with moss and lichen, and deep set in rank grass on this side, where the path runs, and in blue hyacinths on that side, where the wood is, and where on the gray and still naked branches of young oaks sit divers crows, not less solemn than the gaffers, and also gossiping.
You stop to inspect a conservatory, and find yourself in a really marvelous landscape garden, set with statues, all under glass and heated, where the gaffers of Chicago are collected together to discuss interminably the exciting politics of a city anxious about its soul.
Then there was house to house visiting all over the widely-scattered parish, much talk with gaffers and goodies, in all of which Ida assisted. In these visits Ida learned to know a great deal about the ways and manners of the agricultural poor, all the weakness and all the nobility of the rural nature.
"Two ones!" cried the boxer; and the stakes remained untouched. The spinner tossed the coins again, and, as they fell, the gaffers cried "Two heads!" "Two heads," repeated the boxer, with the decision of a judge. The next moment a shower of coins flew like spray across the ring; the tails had paid their dollars to the winning heads.
Chook headed them again, and was three pounds to the good. The gaffers realized that a trot of heads was coming, and the boxer had to offer twelve to ten to cover Chook's stake. For the seventh time Chook threw heads, and was twelve pounds to the good. This was his dream come true, and with the faith of the gambler in omens, he knew that was the end of his luck.
"And they who would fain live happily EVER after, should not leave these things out of the lessons of their lives." A summer's afternoon. Early in the summer, and late in the afternoon; with odors and colors deepening, and shadows lengthening, towards evening. Two gaffers gossiping, seated side by side upon a Yorkshire wall.
Under those circumstances, a caste of hereditary magicians is literally bred for quick thinking. These old gaffers we have aboard are the intellectual top crust among the natives. Any of them can think rings around your Government school products. As for preying on the ignorance and credulity of the other natives, they're only infinitesimally less ignorant and credulous themselves.
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